And here’s the real eye-opener… “…Ammunition Contract with 450 Million Round Potential…”

Yes, you read that right… 450 Million Rounds!

And they’re not just ordinary rounds, they are HST special hollow point bullets! These aren’t bullets for your typical target practice.

So one wonders what is the Department of Homeland Security preparing for such that they feel the need for nearly Half a Billion Bullets?? That’s got to be many, many, many, thousands of bullets per employee.

“This contract features a base of 12 months, includes four option years,”

ATK was the incumbent and won the contract with its HST bullet, which has proven itself in the field. The special hollow point effectively passes through a variety of barriers and holds its jacket in the toughest conditions. HST is engineered for 100-percent weight retention, limits collateral damage, and avoids over-penetration.

“We are proud to extend our track record as the prime supplier of .40 caliber duty ammunition for DHS, ICE,” said Ron Johnson, President of ATK’s Security and Sporting group. “The HST is a proven design that will continue to serve those who keep our borders safe.”

ATK will produce the ammunition at the Federal Cartridge Company facility in Anoka, Minn. Deliveries are expected to begin in June.

Source: ATK

It would be one thing, and make more sense, if this order was for the military. But, this is for an agency that I’m not aware of shooting at too many folks…

Is the DHS preparing for a fight?

To be fair, the contract calls for “up to” 450 million bullets, but when was the last time you heard of a government agency not spending all of its allotted budget??

13 Comments

It would seem relevant with regard to the militarization of our civil servants the police and the use of both of the Smith and Wesson M&P .40. There are other both more expensive and less that will use this .40 so it does have other potentials. Glock G23 Or G22, Walter P99, Beretta, Springfield XD, even Taurus are in the same .40 potentiality.
I’m betting on the S & W-M & P as I am seeing them and shoulder strapped Mac 10’s and other personal favorites on the streets with the new two man units here in FEMA region #1… Survive-All…

Hmmm… Wonder when the Defense Logistics Agency tells DHS they goofed, and ammunition purchases are to be handled through them??? Something like this happened a few years back when DHS tried to buy a whole bunch of MRE’s…

A number of folks “raised the alarm” when in conjunction with a “tabletop” exercise DHS published the bid request, and then withdrew it after they learned how they were “supposed” to source that material.

I WAS initially not terribly concerned about this until it hit me that the contract was actually awarded!

Which raises an even greater concern: “Military” food has to be sourced thorough the military, but they can buy all the ammo they want???

“In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem. From time to time we’ve been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people. Well, if no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else?”
— Ronald Reagan, January 20, 1981

The best that I can determine, there are about 200,000 employees of DHS. No doubt that many of them are office/staff/IT-geeks who likely do not carry (just a guess). I really don’t know how many carry, and I can’t seem to find the answer having spent a reasonable amount of time searching the net. They’ve also ordered 175 million rounds of .223 in addition to the 450 million .40.

Also:
“The DHS seems to be looking for up to 175 million rounds of .223 ammunition.”
Makes one wonder who’s homeland they are planning on defending? Since the military won’t buy into firing on American citizens, the powerz plan on having their other agencies do it for them. Again, more intimidation of US people. They don’t have near enough people to fire all those rounds and if they tried using them on us, we’d only get angry and take them away from them.

450 million! That’s is a lot of ammo. Or is it? On the average police officers miss about 70% of shots fired while working.The good I see out of this huge order of ammo is there may be lots of surplus ammo.

it is a violation of the Geneva Convention to use hollow point ammunition on the battle field.

Now it was reported in the news Winchester Ammunition was recently awarded a contract by the Immigration, Customs and Enforcement (ICE) division of the Department of Homeland Security to supply a maximum of 200 million, 40 cal. hollow point rounds.

DHS does not fight wars overseas. It is a domestic agency with domestic responsibilities. Why are they buying this volume of ammo ?

I don’t think that the Geneva convention applies to homeland security. They don’t, theoretically, fight against organized parties (like militaries). Using hollow point ammo against ‘criminals’ is not a violation. You might want to consider ways of defeating body armor. Harder than it used to be, but doable.